


Broken Bottles

by C_amara_deriee



Series: What She Tells Him [2]
Category: Emerald City (TV 2016)
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol, Child Abuse, Dorothy's had a hard life, F/M, Gen, PTSD, Past Child Abuse, patience like a saint, triggering, vulnerable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-22 02:57:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13754811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/C_amara_deriee/pseuds/C_amara_deriee
Summary: No matter how much they've earned it, Dorothy always turns down his offer for a drink. Lucas doesn’t understand why. Doesn’t understand why she flinches every time he takes a sip. Turns out Dorothy’s dad was a mean drunk with an affinity for broken glass.





	Broken Bottles

No matter how much Dorothy and he have earned it after a long day, Dorothy always turns down his offer for a drink.

Lucas respects her decision, but cannot understand it himself. He isn’t certain if his body is trained to crave the alcohol from his past days as a soldier, or if it comes from an even earlier time- can’t remember which, to be honest. But it never fails to soothe him when he needs it most. The tingle it gives his tongue, the burn in the back of his throat, and the warmth of the beer as it settles in his chest relaxes him like nothing else.

He wishes he could share that feeling with Dorothy.

“No. I…I’m good, thanks though,” she will politely decline when he offers her a mug. He always hears her voice crack when she says it, the way she sounds disconnected, like she’s lost in another time.

It isn’t until many bar trips later, and with the help of a rude stranger, that Lucas finally gathers a clearer understanding of Dorothy’s fear.

They’d been there for hours—at the bar. Lucas finding solace in his mug and listening to the burly men two tables down regale each other with heroic tales. He didn’t want to join in; he was more than content to just listen and watch Dorothy pet Toto across the table from him.

Usually, she would pitch in and comment on the stories they overhear, deadpanning clever statements until she had Lucas doubling over with laughter.

Tonight, though, she said nothing as she solemnly stroked the fur on Toto’s head, staring absently in the direction of the bar, lost in thought.

Lucas narrowed his eyes at the man sitting at the counter. He was the reason his drinking partner was so downtrodden, Lucas would bet his sword on it.

The man may have been attractive, in another lifetime. His black hair was thick and full and his posture emanated authority. But his luscious hair was nothing but a greasy tangle now, and his erect stance served only to further present his paunch. Where a proud and respectable man once stood, a drunk is all that is left behind.

He watched Pot Belly chug a new mug of beer. Bubbly drips of alcohol and spittle escaped from the corners of the man’s greasy lips.

Lucas crinkled his own lips in disgust, only to tighten them into a thin line the longer he thought about it.

Dorothy had been aware of this man from the moment he stepped foot in the bar. Lucas had watched her shoulders tense up as soon as the man walked in, and she only became further on edge as the drunkard became unrulier with every mugful.

Lucas’ eyes widened when he realized what the man was about to do.

He stood quickly; to do what-he didn’t know, and the sudden movement jolted Dorothy out of her absent-mindedness. She followed his eyeline back to the man at the bar and she was moving across the room in front of Lucas before he even had time to put an arm out to stop her.

His fearless Dorothy, always rushing into trouble.

In the end, they were both too slow. The thick glass of beer had already been thrown at the bartender’s head before they could reach the irate drunk. Lucas tracked the glass as it sailed harmlessly over the bartender’s head as the short man ducked, and the thick mug shattered harmlessly against the wooden wall behind.

The sound of glass ricocheted around the bar and left silence in its wake. Broken shards skidded across the floor, but Lucas managed to keep his footing as he crossed the room, skirting past a frozen Dorothy and grabbing the offending man’s arm. He slammed the fool against the counter and immobilized him by holding both arms behind his back. Lucas ignored the man’s violent swearing and turned to check on Dorothy.

Lucas’ heart dropped.

She stood frozen mid-step, exactly in the same place as she was when he had brushed past her. Her head was tilted down towards a piece of glass that had scraped to a stop a mere inch from the toe of her shoe.

Lucas had never seen this look on her face before. Eyes wide, eyebrows crumpled, mouth ever-so-slightly opened just enough to allow for the quick, hyperventilating breaths to escape.

This was not a look he associated with his Dorothy. This was the look of someone… _afraid._

Lucas took a moment to wrestle the man who caused all this trouble out the front door of the bar, taking no care to be gentle when throwing him to the dirt. He slammed the door shut and rushed back to Dorothy, ignoring the stares of the other bar patrons.

She was exactly as he’d left her: completely wrecked.

Blame the alcohol, or maybe just the adrenaline in his system, but Lucas dared to reach up and cup Dorothy’s face with his hands.

“Dorothy,” he grumbled out when her expression didn’t change. He swiped his thumb over her still cheek. “What’s wrong, Dorothy?”

He pushed a few strands of hair out of her face and slowly, _agonizingly_ slowly, her eyes drifted up to meet his.

The scarecrow forced a small smile onto his face, “Hey there.”

She said nothing, just sucked in a stuttering breath and shut her suspiciously wet eyelids.

Lucas watched the first tear streak down her face.

And then a second. Then a third.

Lucas took control of the situation and adjusted himself so that his back was to the rest of the bar, and Dorothy was hidden from anyone’s view. He knew she would hate anyone to see her like this.

And then, he simply held her in his arms.

The noise from the bar started up again, unsteady at first and then roaring back into life.

Steadily, the man holding his past, present, and future in his hands, and the woman being cradled by her unfaltering guardian, faded into the background.

When they left five minutes later, no one gave them a second glance.

As soon as they were out the door, Dorothy turned away from him and set off in the opposite direction.

“What-Dorothy! _Dorothy!_ ” Lucas reached out and grabbed her arm to stop her.

The reaction was instantaneous. Dorothy _launched_ herself at the ground and clenched her hands to her sides.

“I didn’t! I didn’t _mean_ it!” she gasped breathlessly.

Lucas stood dumfounded, his arm still stretched out in the air between them.

Dorothy continued to shake and plead to an unknown entity. “Please! I’ll be quiet. _I’ll be quiet._ Please--” her eyes were shut tight, only Dorothy herself knew what she was seeing right now-- “Just no more bottles. _No more bottles, Dad. Please._ Dad, please _!”_

Lucas was… he wasn’t sure what he was. ‘Surprised’ didn’t seem to cover it. Maybe ‘horrified’ was closer to what he was looking for.

He followed the line of Dorothy’s trembling arms to where her fists were now tucked up against her chest, protecting her body from whatever it was she feared.

Yes, ‘horrified’ seemed most accurate.

Lucas carefully lowered himself next to Dorothy and reached out a hand towards her. He ignored her initial full-body flinch as his fingertips reached her and pulled her into his lap. He began to stroke her hair.

They sat there for a while; Lucas soothingly running his fingertips through her hair, and Dorothy fighting her leftover shivers. Toto watched them from just outside the doorway to the Bar.

Lucas knew Dorothy was back in the present with him when she shoved him away from her without warning and stumbled to her feet. She stood above him and glared menacingly. Although the effect was diminished slightly by the arms wrapped tightly around her torso.

Lucas simply gazed up at her from his crisscrossed position on the ground.

After a few minutes of their silent stare-off, Dorothy huffed a sigh and sat back down in front of Lucas.

If the situation were less intense, Lucas would have smiled. Dorothy was as stubborn as they came; Lucas had yet to meet a single person in Oz more determined than his spitfire. But in the end, her stubbornness was never a match for Lucas’ sincere, steadfast concern. He never asked more than she was willing to give, but he was leagues more patient than Dorothy, and the waiting game always ended in his favor.

“That man,” Dorothy finally admitted, “he looks just like my dad.”

Lucas only noded solemnly, hoping his silence would prompt her to continue. She did.

“Sometimes he would come home drunk.” She twitched one side of her lip up in a mockery of a smirk and scoffed. “I shouldn’t say that. I’m not sure there was ever a time when he _wasn’t_ drunk.” Dorothy dropped her gaze to Lucas’ feet for a moment. When she looked back up at him, he could see the steely determination in them.

That’s the Dorothy he knew.

Lucas settled himself more comfortably in the dirt, and Dorothy began telling him everything about her father.

Sitting on the cold ground, ten and a half feet from the entrance to a noisy bar, Dorothy told him about the nights her dad would invite his friends over and drink himself blind. She told him about how he would chuck bottles at her when she made any noise. How, on a few special nights, he would get bored and scrape up some of the broken bottle shards and call her over in front of him, where he would proceed to place the shards in her palms and close her fingers into fists and cover them with his own thick hands, and tell her not to say a thing, not one single sound.

Lucas’ eyes flickered down to where Dorothy’s wrists were pressed against her middle. She wasn’t protecting her chest like he’d thought, she was protecting her _hands_. Because they’d been scarred time and time again by her dad. With broken bottles. The same kind of bottle Lucas drank his beer out of every week. The same kind of bottle he sat in front of her with, completely and unknowingly gesturing around with, _three feet away from her_ with, every week.

God, he was a fool.

“Dorothy, I had no idea.”

Dorothy pulled a face at him. “Of course, you didn’t. How could you? I don’t blame you for any of it, you weren’t even there, Lucas.”

He shut his eyes tight, not even worthy of looking at her, and pleaded.

“Dorothy, I’m not talking about your past. I was not there to protect you from your vermin father, and I will regret that for the rest of my life. But, worse, I have brought you to bar after bar and drunk cup after cup in front of you, and I didn’t know what I was doing to you Dorothy, you have to believe me.” He opened his eyes to meet hers head on. “Please, Dorothy, please understand.”

Dorothy sat stunned on the dirt ground. Carefully, she removed her hands from where they were plastered to her body and slid her fingers into his, so that his palm cradled her knuckles.

“You’re not him. I would never be afraid of you.”

Lucas’ hands were large enough that his palms engulfed hers, but they were nothing but gentle as he wrapped his fingers in hers and pulled them both up to their feet.

“And I will never give you a reason to be.”


End file.
